


From the Outside

by parx



Category: Waterparks (Band)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parx/pseuds/parx
Summary: Awsten needs a break from tour. Badly. This is the night he puts his foot down, as told by people who are usually in the background.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 47





	1. Backstage

One more hour til the theater closes. Just one more hour until Alex can go home and see her dog and drink some wine and go to sleep. She’s backstage doing all of her backstage manager stuff when the green room door bangs open, and she jumps. She turns to look as the guy with lime green hair who’d been centerstage just ten minutes earlier starts to yell.

She flinches in fear at first, but after a mere few seconds, she realizes that she’s not in danger. He doesn’t even know that she’s there. He’s yelling at the hot guy that Alex learned a few hours ago was the tour manager. 

“-and I can’t _do_ this anymore, Lucas!” the singer is shouting. “Fuck! _Fuck!_ ” 

“Okay, calm down,” the hot guy - Lucas, apparently - placates.

It’s the wrong thing to say. 

“No, fuck you!” 

Alex tenses again, but the pair still hasn’t noticed her. She stays silent and still. 

“Awsten,” hot tour manager says calmly, “I know you don’t feel good right now, but-”

“But what?! But what! It’s only gonna get worse! You don't fucking know how I feel!”

“That’s not-”

“ _I need a break!_ ” the singer explodes, but Alex can tell from his voice that this isn’t a diva meltdown. This is desperation. “I’m so tired I feel fucking sick! I’m so tired, Lucas, I’m so fucking tired, okay, I can’t take one more day of this-”

“I know. Okay. I know. I hear you, man.” 

“Help me,” the singer pleads, and he steps forward and half-collapses onto his tour manager. 

Alex is _so_ glad that she has minimal interaction with band dudes. She used to want to be a roadie. Ha.

The tour manager looks caught off-guard by the hug, but he’s quick to return it, even giving the guy a little rub on the back. 

“I wanna go home,” the singer confesses, his voice small. 

“No,” the tour manager replies warningly.

“I wanna sleep in my bed. I want my keyboard back. I want my stupid gold silverware and the Thai place down the block. Don’t you wanna see Kay and Harvey?”

Hot guy sighs. “Awsten, we’re contracted to-”

The singer roughly pulls back and yells, “I don’t give a fuck about the contract! I wanna go home!” 

( _Okay, now he kinda sounds like a diva_ , Alex thinks.)

“I can get you a break,” the tour manager tells him quietly. “I can’t promise we can stop the tour; I think that would be a really, really bad move. But what if I could get you a break?”

“Please,” the green-haired guy begs.

“Two nights in a hotel.”

The singer literally starts to weakly cry.  “Yeah," he nods. "Yes. God, fuck, Lucas, thank you.”

“Okay, stop. Stop. You’re killing me.” Hot guy sighs and turns his head, and Alex freezes completely when he makes eye contact with her. He spends a moment looking surprised but then just shrugs. Normally she’d give him a knowing smile, but this whole situation is unbearably awkward. 

_Sorry_ , he mouths. Then he pats the singer on the shoulder and says, “You ready to go? I’ll have Aaron grab your stuff so you and me can just get out of here.”

“The fans-” he protests.

“Are all either at the front exit or the bus. We’ll go out the side.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. And if anybody’s there, you know the drill.”

The green-haired guy nods. 

“Okay. Hang on, let me get an Uber.” 

He sags against the wall and closes his eyes. “What would I do without you?” he asks rhetorically, but the tour manager, who’s busy tapping away on his phone, has an answer ready for him.

“Die, probably. There’s one outside. Let’s go.”

"Did you tell him to go to the side door?"

"Yep. Come on."  The tour manager shoots an apologetic glance to Alex, and they disappear out the door. 

Wow. She hopes both of them get through the night okay, but the whole incident is quickly forgotten. There’s too much stuff left to do before closing.


	2. In Transit

Jason rolls down his window. “Uber for Lucas?” he calls to the guy waiting in the shadowy doorway at the side of the building. 

“Yeah.” Then, behind himself, he says, “Here, come here.” The guy who’d spoken opens the back door, and a much smaller guy dressed all in black with a sweatshirt hood over his head ducks into the back of Jason’s Corolla. 

“You’re goin’ to the Doubletree, right?” Jason asks.

“That’s right,” the taller guy answers as he climbs in, too. He’s got hair like a Greek god and stormy eyes to match. 

Jason nods. “Alright, alright!” He presses a couple of buttons on his phone screen while the two guys get buckled, and then he starts to drive. 

Jason pretends not to pay attention to the men, although he does glance at them in the mirror every few minutes. The passengers are mostly quiet, muttering a little to each other under their breath but staying silent most of the time. Once they’re a few miles away from the venue, the smaller guy pulls his hood down to reveal electric green hair, and the taller guy gives him a soft smile.

The hotel isn’t close; it’s about a thirty-five minute trek down the freeway. So when the green-haired guy starts softly crying in the backseat - seemingly randomly - Jason grabs a box of tissues from his console and passes it backwards. 

“Thanks,” the long-haired guy says, accepting it and pulling one out to give to his companion.

He takes it and hopelessly apologizes. 

“It’s okay,” Jason replies. “Anything I can do? I got some water up here. It’s free.” 

The pair share a glance, and then the green-haired one nods. Jason passes him a bottle. The blonde pays close attention to make sure the lid cracks when the other guy opens it, and it does. They go quiet again. 

“You wanna close your eyes?” the bigger guy asks after a few moments. 

Without a verbal response, the crying guy passes the water bottle to him and leans into his shoulder, shutting his eyes. 

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes, but you can relax until then.” 

“Kay,” comes the soft reply. 

He’s asleep in less than three minutes. 

“Sorry,” the blonde guy says, and it takes Jason a few seconds to realize that the guy is talking to him. 

“Oh, no, man, it’s fine. I’ve seen it all. Well - nobody’s ever had a baby in here. I see that on the news sometimes, women having babies in Ubers.”

The guy snorts a gentle laugh. “That would be something.”

“Yeah. Scares me. I don’t know nothing about that shit.”

“Yeah,” he echoes. 

There’s a bit of an awkward silence, and then Jason decides to ask, “He okay?”

“Oh, yeah, he’ll be fine. We’ve, um. He’s in a band, and we’re at that part of tour where everybody’s exhausted. He works too hard normally, so tour is really tough on him. He’s kinda pushing up against that line of insanity.”

“What’s the band?”

The guy just smiles like he’s not gonna tell. 

“Alright, that’s fair. They got a following, then.”

“Yeah. A little bit.” 

“Well, I hope he feels better.” 

“Yeah. We’ve got the next two days off, so hopefully that’ll help. Being in a hotel and not having to drive all day for a little bit will be good for him. He just needs some stability and some serious sleep, and he’ll be fine.” 

“I'm sure. Where’s the rest of the band?”

“Packing up, maybe talking to fans. Lots of selfies. He was starting to break down,” the guy explains, looking down at the band member sleeping on his arm. “I had to sneak him out. That’s why I asked you to come to the side door.” 

“And the hood,” Jason realizes.

“Yep.”

“They’d know the hair.”

“Exactly.” 

“So how are you involved? Are you in the band, too?”

They talk for the rest of the trip about tour managing and travel, places that they’ve been, places they want to go... Jason is honestly kind of sad when they pull into the hotel parking lot. 

“Aws,” the blonde guy says, and he gives the green-haired boy a gentle shake. 

“Hmm?” he asks too loudly, quickly sitting up. “Where are we?”

“We’re at the hotel.” 

“To get in bed?”

“Exactly.” The blonde guy gets out of the car and waits while the smaller one climbs out after him, and Jason notices that he’s got WATERPARKS FANDOM TOUR 2019 written in giant letters on the back of his sweatshirt. 

“Come on,” the Greek god says. “Let’s go check in.” He leans down and says to Jason through the open back door, “Thank you.” 

“No problem, man.”

With that, the blonde closes the door. 

Jason clicks around some more on his phone screen and then heads over to Safari, where he searches Waterparks. Sure enough, staring at him from the first photo result is the guy with lime green hair, and he’s accompanied by two other dudes about the same age. Jason searches the band name on Spotify. The three of them are on the banner on the streaming site as well. 

“A million monthly listeners,” Jason muses to himself. “No shit.” He glances through the glass doors of the hotel. He can see the guy who’d just been in his backseat with his head buried in his arms, both of which are resting on the front desk. 

“Good luck, guys,” Jason mutters out loud, and then he turns the radio back on. He’s off to a restaurant to pick up his next customers.


	3. Getting There

Ariel has always hated the night shift, but she’s trying to make it to grad school, so work-work-work it is. And that means a regular spot on the night shift. It’s her third night in a row, and even though she's only been here an hour, she can't stop yawning. 

It’s just past eleven when two guys come in, one of them looking so tired that he can barely stand up. He sags at the desk, resting all of his weight on the counter and hiding his face in his arms. Ariel can see that he’s falling half asleep as he stands there. 

“Me, too,” she murmurs, even though she’s 99% sure he’s not listening. To the man with him, she says, “Hi, welcome to the Doubletree.” 

“Hey,” he says, but he’s not looking at her; he’s scrolling through his email, probably searching for his confirmation. 

“What’s the name?” 

“Madden.”

As she says, “I’ve got four rooms reserved under that name,” he finds what he’s looking for. 

“That’s right.” He holds out his phone to her, and she politely pretends to look at something on the screen even though she doesn’t need it. 

“Okay, great,” she says, and she starts typing (although that part really is necessary). “Do you have the card that was used to make the reservation?”

He passes it across the desk where his buddy is resting and then lightly pats the guy on the back. “We’re the only two here. Everybody else will probably be here in an hour. Two or three at the most.” 

She forces a smile. “That’s fine.” (It’s not fine. It’s actually kind of a problem. But he seems tired, and while he hasn’t been particularly nice, he hasn't been rude at all.) 

“I’m sorry,” he says genuinely. “I know it’s kind of a hassle.” 

“No, no,” she dismisses, although admittedly, she likes him a little more now that he's apologized. “Happens all the time. Let’s see…” 

“Are any of the rooms off by themselves?”

“One of them isn’t with the other three, yes; we didn’t have four together. I’m sorry.” 

“That’s fine. Could he and I take that one?”

_Oh my god, they’re boyfriends!_ she thinks. She kind of wants to tell them about her girlfriend, but she refrains and nods. “Sure.” 

“He really needs to catch up on sleep,” the man explains.

Ariel smiles a little. “Yep, I can see that.” 

While she’s printing a paper for the man to sign and grabbing two room keys, the green-haired guy lifts his head, blinks in concentration, and then looks crushed. “I don’t have my toothbrush,” he reports sadly, looking at his boyfriend with defeated eyes. 

“Aaron’s gonna bring it. I’ll have it for you in our room in the morning, okay?”

“I’m not staying with Jawn?” The sad eyes get sadder.

Maybe they’re not boyfriends after all. 

“No. They won’t be back til later, and they’ll just wake you up with the door. You’re gonna room with me. You know they’re gonna hook up to the TV and play Super Smash Bros for at least an hour.” 

Ariel bites her tongue to keep herself from exclaiming, “I love Super Smash Bros!”

The guy makes a sad noise, and the man smiles at Ariel remorsefully and again says, “Sorry.” He reaches for a pen from the cup so he can sign and initial the pages she passes to him. He breezes through them like a pro, and Ariel wonders if he’s some sort of grungy business man. (Grungy in a good way.) 

“I want my guitar,” the sleepy guy says, tugging at the sweatshirt sleeve of the man like a little kid. "The green one." 

“Shh, tomorrow.”

“No, _now_ ,” he whines.

“Awsten,” the man sighs, and neither of them say anything else. He passes the papers back to Ariel, who gives him the room keys in exchange. 

“Breakfast is from six to nine,” she informs them. “The workout rooms are open 24/7, and the pool opens at 10. If you have any questions, just dial 0 on the phone, and it’ll connect you to the front desk.” 

“Can we go in the pool?” the tired guy asks the man.

“Not now. You need to sleep.” 

“The pool’s closed now,” Ariel tells the green-haired guy kindly, “but it’ll be back open tomorrow.” 

“Oh,” he says quietly, and he lays his head back down on the desk.

“Hey,” the other man says conspiratorially to Ariel, “do you guys have those warm cookies?”

She points just down the way at a little box filled with them. “Just came out of the oven a few minutes ago.”

He smiles, and she notices for the first time that he’s very good-looking. “Thank you.” They start away, but she can still hear him ask his friend, “Do you want a cookie?”

“No, I want my guitar,” he responds petulantly. 

“I can’t help you with that right now. And I’ll eat your cookie, in that case.”  The man grabs two chocolate chip cookies out of the box and shuts it again. “Come on, let’s go.” 

“Lucaaaaas,” the tired guy whines, "I wanna go hooooome."

“I know, man. Come on.” The man slips his arm around his not-boyfriend and leads him toward the elevators.

_They could date,_ Ariel thinks.


	4. Hallways and Doorways

If there’s one thing Doug hates, it’s cleaning the bathrooms. They’re usually not that bad since most people only stay in the rooms one or two nights, so it’s more the idea of it that bothers him. He’s saved it for last on the room he’s working on (as usual), and now he’s stalling at the housekeeping cart. It’s half past midnight and halfway through The Bends when a guy with dyed red hair - like, fire engine red, not ‘natural’ red - emerges from the elevator down the way and goes to knock on a door.

That gets Doug’s attention since the only people who knock on doors are usually chaperones (and this guy doesn’t look like a chaperone of any kind), people orchestrating some sort of hookup, or people looking for drugs. Doug wheels his cart closer, pauses his music, and tugs his headphones out so he can eavesdrop. He unlocks a room that he knows is empty and lets himself in but leaves the door open, standing silently just inside the doorway, listening. 

The door opens.

“Hey.” 

“Hey.” 

Both of the voices belong to men. Interesting.

“How’s he doing?” one of them asks.

“Passed out,” the other replies with a sigh. 

Doug swallows. Is this a drug thing? Should he be calling the manager?

“I think he’s just really tired,” the same voice continues. “You should have heard him yelling at me earlier. Then he started crying in the Uber.” He sighs again. 

“That bad?” 

“Yeah.” 

There’s a moment of quiet.

“Can I say goodnight to him?” 

“Jawn…” 

_John_ , Doug commits to memory. He’ll need that if something bad happens. _John,_ he repeats in his mind. _John. John._

“Please? I won’t wake him up.”

Doug starts to wonder if they’re talking about a kid. 

“No. But he was asking about you. He was pretty disappointed not to be rooming with you.”

“Aww. And he always acts like he hates me,” comes a gentle laugh.

Are these two guys dads? Dad and stepdad? Dad and Grandpa? Neither of the voices sound old. Maybe one of them is an uncle. 

“Okay, well, we’re playing Super Smash in Geoff and Otto's room if you wanna come. Which I know you don’t. But if you do, or if you just wanna come hang with some people who are actually conscious…?”

“Nah, that’s okay. I'm gonna turn in soon, too. Thanks, though.” 

“Okay. See you tomorrow.” 

“Yep. No call time.”

There’s a smile in the other guy’s voice as he replies, “Best news ever.” 

“Yep.” The other one sounds like he might be smiling, too. “Night, Jawn.”

“Night!” 

Doug slips out the door to 'grab a trash bag' and steal one last glance, and he almost crashes into the red-haired guy, who smiles sheepishly. “Sorry.” 

Doug just nods in response. “No problem.” 

The guy gets partially down the hallway, and while Doug continues pretending to be busy, he watches out of the corner of his eye to see the guy looking hard at the room numbers. 

Red hair dude lets out a quiet, “Fuck,” before turning around and heading back the way he came. He smiles again at Doug as he passes, but he doesn’t say anything. 

Doug wonders whether he’s John and whether it’s his son behind the door. He also wonders whether there’s anything interesting happening here at all, which there probably isn’t. Yeah, it may be midnight, but the world is a good place filled with good people. The red haired guy had come to say goodnight to someone he loves. There’s probably nothing criminal in that.

Doug puts his headphones back in and presses play. 


End file.
